Job Description for Litigation Attorney

A litigation attorney is a lawyer who specializes in dealing with lawsuits and representing either plaintiffs or defendants in cases. Often simply called a litigator, they oversee the entire process of taking a lawsuit to court. This process is quite often lengthy, and it is necessary for the litigation attorney to be patient and detail-oriented.

To start the process, the litigation attorney must investigate the case to find out whether enough evidence exists to create a potential lawsuit (in the case of their client suing somebody else); if the client is being sued, the litigator will investigate evidence pertaining to the case. There are two types of litigation attorneys: civil and criminal. Criminal litigators focus on state or federal prosecutions, and civil litigators have a broad range of case types they may work on. Often, a litigator chooses to specialize in a particular area such as business, real estate, or personal injury. The lawsuits that litigators work on may vary widely in scope, and they may require the litigator to have a team of co-attorneys and other legal staff.

The required credentials for a litigator are a juris doctorate from an accredited law school and pass the bar exam in the state in which they want to practice, the same requirements as for any other lawyer. Usually, litigators can be classed by their experience in dealing with lawsuits, measured in years. A junior litigator has zero to three years, a mid-level litigator has three to four, and a senior litigator has four or more. (Copyright 2019 PayScale.com)

Litigation Attorney Tasks

Present cases in court representing the local, state or federal government.

Review reports, evidence, and conduct research.

Question witnesses, victims or others involved in the case.

About Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

County, State

Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania

Population

1,567,442

Gender

Male:

741,270 (47.3%)

Female:

826,172 (52.7%)

Philadelphia (/ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə/) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the fifth-most populous in the United States, with an estimated population in 2014 of 1,560,297. In the Northeastern United States, at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valley, a metropolitan area home to 7.2 million people and the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.
In 1682, William Penn founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787. Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals in the Revolutionary War, and served as temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a major industrial center...